Beyond the zero

[Mark Kohut]

So wonderfully brilliant of Pynchon to have it mean both infinity and negative infinity. That Empsonian "ambiguity" even here...and maybe a connective link w negative numbers in ATD? 

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 28, 2014, at 8:20 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you could get up high enough in the sky, then you'd see that some
> rainbows continue below the horizon. That's because when the sun and
> rain combine to make a rainbow, they really make a full-circle
> rainbow. We can't see all of the circle, because the horizon blocks it
> from our view. Pilots high in the sky do sometimes report seeing
> genuine full-circle rainbows.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-optical-illusions.htm
> 
> On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 2:17 AM, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was just thinking of an upside down parabola that comes from negative inf
>> on x and y whose vertex has a pos y value and therefore 2 roots so "beyond
>> the zero" is infinity. You could also say negative infinity. In real life
>> rockets go up and down in a parabola but they start and end at the surface
>> of the earth. If you fire a rocket with a sufficient angle and speed then,
>> like pirate and the gang from the beginning of the book, you won't hear an
>> explosion because it would be falling indefinitely. Not that that's what's
>> going on in the book.
>> 
>> I should probably finish it first then think about all this
>> 
>> On Feb 27, 2014 8:57 PM, "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> You already knew the answer, of course. But remember the graph as it
>>> continues on and on beyond the zero, over and over.
>>> 
>>> On Thursday, February 27, 2014, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> If the zero is the x horizon, and the trajectory starts at zero, when the
>>>> path returns to zero, where does the math take it next?  The answer should
>>>> be obvious.
>>>> 
>>>> David Morris
>>>> 
>>>> On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm only 20 pages in but I wanted to let it be known that I've begun,
>>>>> which is not to say I'll finish, GR. I've been told that the title, among
>>>>> countless other things, alludes to the trajectory of a rocket and the novel
>>>>> itself. The "Beyond the Zero" epigraph to me invokes a graph of a negative
>>>>> parabola that has two roots or zeros (I have a bachelors in Applied Math but
>>>>> you don't need one to solve a polynomial). Anyway the von Braun quote brings
>>>>> up the fact that the parabola doesn't end at the zeros but goes on to
>>>>> infinity and it reminded me of Saturn via Keats "There is no death in all
>>>>> the universe"
>>>>> 
>>>>> Anyhooz I'm sure you all have discussed it to death (there is no
>>>>> death...) but to keep myself motivated I'll update you as I move along
> -
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